Chris's Musings

Exodus 1:15-21 - Rebelling Biblically Today, in my morning Bible study, the conversation around "what happens when you can't comply with a law?" came up in the conversation. Included in this talk was Titus 3:1 which states: "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work." This is 99.9% of the time what we are called to do. Romans 13 is also very clear that we are to submit to the authority of the government. However, as we have seen in history and in the Bible, there are cases where God's people are required to righteously rebel. Here are a few Biblical cases: 1. Peter stands before the Sanhedrin and after (again) preaching and teaching in the temple after being told the the authorities (these guys) to shut his pie hole, Peter responds, in a tribunal nonetheless "Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges!" - Acts 4:19 2. Daniel, upon hearing an edict

Genesis 42: Hidden Perspectives The sons of Israel find themselves in a predicament. They are standing in front of the Governor of the land of Egypt, starving, with money to buy grain, and getting harassed by this man. He questions their sincerity, demands that their brother Benjamin be sent down, puts them in prison for three days, and then holds their brother Simeon as collateral for them to come back. They say: "God is punishing us for what we did to our brother Joseph!" Reuben quips "I told you not to do what you did!" (Genesis 42:21-22) Meanwhile, the Governor, unbeknownst to them, is Joseph. They go back home to Canaan, less one of them, and find that the money they allocated for the grain purchase was still in their sack. They freak out. I'm sure they are thinking "OH NO! When he finds out, we are hosed!" What they didn't know was Joseph put the money back in the sacks. Jacob, upon hearing the news, is heartbroken and believes he&#

  Devotional thoughts for today. "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." - Romans 12:18 A little about my morning methodology. I typically choose a section of the Bible to meditate on during each year, and this year I'm reading through the "Torah" (or the first five books of the Bible, which are foundational not only to Jews but also to our Christian faith). Today, I was reading in Genesis 26. Genesis 26 mostly covers the life details of the life of Isaac. Isaac doesn't get much press, being sandwiched in between Abraham and Jacob in the Patriarch line, but he is significant nonetheless. More is written about what is done TO Isaac vs. what Isaac himself has done. However, Genesis 26 gives a glimpse into it. Perhaps the reason for the lack of press (if I can speculate) is that Isaac's life was pretty non-dramatic. Other than the circumstances of his birth, the fateful trip to Mount Moriah, and Jacob's act of deceptio

  Back in 2020 (Yes, THAT 2020), with all of the negative that came out of that year (and we lived in Colorado and experienced much of it), one seemingly bright light that came into our lives was this crowdsource-funded streaming digital series about the life of Jesus that was starting to gain attention on social media.  It was (and still is) called "The Chosen."   I'm not sure if it was out of curiosity, boredom, or out of the hope that something good would come out of the year we were living in, but we started to watch the first season that streamed on YouTube.  This program, which is the brainchild of Dallas Jenkins (whose dad Jerry Jenkins was the author of the Left Behind series books), was a creative project aimed at expressing the stories of Jesus in the Bible (and we find that much was made up... more on that later) in a modern format mimicking a "bingeable" Netflix series.  The production value was excellent.  The Chosen, especially given the limited bu